Criscito: “Gasp a second dad. The police in Coverciano? I feared for my son”

There was a turning point. There is always when life directs a destiny, Scardobella the days in the calendar, book a trip to a train that we didn’t know to leave. And while the sound of the rails acts as a punctuation to the thoughts that run away, at night it accompanies us from one age to another. Mimmo Criscito is 38 years old, he stopped two summers ago, today he trains the under 17 of Genoa and his boys asks for a small thing, which however gives meaning to everything else. “When they arrive at the field I tell him: smile, show yourself that you are happy to stay here, in the open air, with a ball, together with other guys of your age”; He asks him why – if he remembers that journey, that train, that night in which everything began – after years is his smile that sees reflected at the window of memories.

Mimmo Criscito, what was his first turning point?

“I was fifteen, I was on the night train that brings to Genoa from Naples. With me there were other guys, also Fabio Pisacane, who today trains Cagliari. There was adrenaline, the enthusiasm that you are at that age, but also the fear of a new world that awaited me. He had taken Genoa, I was becoming a footballer”.

What are its origins?

“I grew up in Volla, in the metropolitan area of Naples. Dad Alfredo worker in a plastics factory, my mom Maria Casalinga. Two sisters, Antonella and Rossella, a brother, Andrea, born just the year, 2001, in which I left home (laughs) let’s say that mother wanted another little man in the house. As a boy my idol was Maldini: I looked at him and I thought that elegance, Personality, here, I wanted to have them.

To retrace his career, coaches of the highest plan sprout.

“I am not so false as to say that with everyone I linked, but I owe everyone to everyone. Torrente made me make my debut in B at sixteen, Ranieri launched me in A, Lippi gave me my first blue shirt, with Spalletti I shared the fabulous experience in St. Petersburg, but most of all, it is Gasperini who formed me. It was a second dad, he gave me confidence in me.”

Another turning point, tell us.

“I am at Juventus, a couple of games are wrong, yes, even that of Totti’s famous goal, who sends me out of turns with a fake and scores. It is true, I was a piver, but I felt marginalized. The thing that fought me the most were the lies on my account, they also wrote that I had put in line at the stadium to go and see the lantern’s derby, but I was all invented. A balance gave me back, he changed his role, made me become the footballer who then became “. Regrets for having lived the Juve of Striscio?

“No, it went like this. I was young, you can make a few games at that age. But Juve does not wait for you, you must be ready immediately”.

What do you remember of the debut in the national team?

“In Basel, against Switzerland, at 22 years old. I was convinced I would not have set foot on the pitch, but on the eve Lippi said that Marchisio and I would have debuted. In the tunnel I was very testers, Pirlo approaches me and makes me: then Mimmo, when you see that the ball comes to me, you start running, run, run, so much, look at me, I put the ball from the ball. Loving the tension, he had succeeded. ”

In the national team she also experienced the darkest moment of your career. It was when he found himself implicated in the footballoscommesse. Registered in the register of suspects on charges of criminal association aimed at sports fraud.

“I was in Coverciano, it was six in the morning, the police arrived, in the room I was with Ranocchia, I did not understand what was going on. I thought something bad had happened to my son, he was six months old. At the same time the agents entered my house, was my wife Pamela, she was twenty -one years. In those days the world collapsed on me. She was next to me, we are happy, we are happy. We have passed, eh … “.

“Two things. The first: I’m innocent, and in the end I will be right. The second: if someone wants to screw yourself, care. And you can’t do anything”.

He was right, he was acquitted by all accusations.

“But it was a long story, that the 2012 European Championship took me away and he took away the serenity”.

She had the privilege of a few: close the professional circle with the Genoa shirt, the heart team.

“It was as if everything went back in place. I had gone to Toronto, but I stayed five months, I didn’t feel that football. Returning to Italy, I thought I could stop. Instead, I was lucky enough to play my last game by scoring a penalty under the curve of the Griffin, touching the last ball on the net”.

The last turning point of his life is the new adventure on the bench.

“I am convinced that the apprenticeship serves, helps to grow. The finish line is to train in A, like so many companions I had in Genoa, from Palladino to Juric, from Thiago Motta to Bocchetti: each with his own style, each with his ideas”.